6 top Fidget Spinners on iOS and Android

If your first question upon entering this story is 'what's a fidget spinner?', you're either old, averse to pop culture, or have been on a Wi-Fi-free retreat for the past few months.

Fidget spinners are physical toys designed to keep idle hands busy. They're essentially a modern take on the stress ball, but they take the form of a multi-pronged disc that spins around a central, grippable axle.

This concept makes sense. What might not make sense to you is that there's been a subsequent surge of digital fidget spinners. This is a device whose tactile nature is intrinsic to its appeal, yet people are downloading virtual facsimiles.

Partly in the interest of keeping our finger on the pulse of app trends - but mainly out of a sense of fascinated non-comprehension - we thought we'd round up some of the fidget spinner apps out there and see what they have to offer.

Fidget Spinner

The most high profile and popular digital fidget spinner of the lot is Fidget Spinner from KetchApp - that specialist in making quick-fire games to capitalise on current trends.

There is, at least, some kind of goal to Fidget Spinner - though it is extremely bare bones. You have five swipes to set a virtual fidget spinner spinning as much as possible, attempting to find the sweet spot between maintaining momentum and maximising your limited spin count.

At the end you collect your 'reward' in the shape of a bunch of coins, which can in turn be spent on upgrading your spinner. It's all pretty pointless and wafer thin, but there you go.

Fidget Hand Spinner

Extensive research led to this second pick. Nah, not really. I searched for 'fidget spinner' in the App Store and Fidget Hand Spinner's name came right after Fidget Spinner.

Fidget Hand Spinner makes the daring aesthetic decision to go with a two-pronged spinner as standard, rather than the usual three. Scandalous, I know, but don't worry purists - you can switch to a normal one.

It also realises that Fidget Spinner's gameplay was far too convoluted, and makes it a case of getting as many spins as you can from a single flick.

My favourite bit of Fidget Hand Spinner is the total lack of sound, so there's less chance of someone realising you're playing it.

Fidget Spin

Here's the third app on the search result list, Fidget Spin. There's no 'er' about it.

Fidget Spin heads off on a complete tangent by asking you to keep a fidget spinner in the air by tapping it. Our only guess is that the developer has confused the current fidget spinner craze with the hacky sack craze of the mid-'90s.

It's an easy mistake to make. Actually, no, it's not.

Fidget Spinner - Fidget Hand Spinner Toy

Okay, now they're just squashing searchable terms. This one's laughably amateurish, with no scoring system, no sound, the most basic of graphical presentation, and some of the most obnoxious ad implementation in existence.

Fidget Spinner: Best spinner simulator

That's quite a claim... (checks developer's name) Nguyen. Is your effort really the best spinner app on the market?

You get a solid 'D' for the terrible generic techno-pop pounding away above the 'action' - that made me smile/thank Apple for including a physical mute button. The spinning itself is a drawn out, bloodless affair with endless inertia and an apparent lack of milestones.

Oh, and more obnoxious ads.

Fidget Spinner Toy

This one actually has an 'Angular damping' gauge at the bottom of the screen that makes the spinning pattern change a bit. Cool, eh? Eh? EH?!